'Romancing The Stone' Remake Headed To TV, Shawn Levy To Direct Pilot

By
Kevin Jagernauth
|
The PlaylistAugust 31, 2011 at 9:19AM

Just last week, the long gestating "Romancing the Stone" remake got new life when rumors kicked around that Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl were being eyed as the potential leads in the new film. Needless to say, the general reaction from everybody was a resounding thumbs down. But as it turns out, while the remake/reboot is indeed still happening there have been some significant changes to the game plan.

Just last week, the long gestating "Romancing the Stone" remake got new life when rumors kicked around that Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl were being eyed as the potential leads in the new film. Needless to say, the general reaction from everybody was a resounding thumbs down. But as it turns out, while the remake/reboot is indeed still happening there have been some significant changes to the game plan.

Firstly, you can thank whatever god you pray to -- this won't feature Butler or Heigl. However, that's mostly because the project is now being tooled up for television instead and has a new home at NBC. That's right, you won't just endure two hours of a needless remake -- if it all pans out, you're gonna get a whole season of a bad idea. But they've changed things up a little bit. This time, the story will center on a romance writer successful woman who seeks to get more out of life by teaming up with a bird exporter a risk-taking adventurer (is that a real job? are they hiring?) for weekly missions, and oh yeah, she's also going to be looking for her long lost brother.

So basically, the premise has been turned into a weekly adventure series that sounds, frankly, pretty tame. However, it does have some juice behind it. Shawn Levy's 21 Laps shingle is one of the production teams behind the film and he is lined up to direct the pilot provided any feature film work doesn't get in the way. But all of this is early days and we likely won't hear any more about it until it starts moving toward shooting a pilot and we would guess the earliest that happens is next year. But at least we've been spared another Buttheig (that's our name for them) reteam. A remake is one thing, but there is only so much we can take. [Deadline]